The
importance of advertising to motivate masses buy products and services could hardly be
over-emphasised. The advertising scenario in Pakistan revolves primarily round some 5
dozen agencies, the state-owned Pakistan Television, a small number of publishing big
houses, a handful of advertisers pumping in the bulk of the expenditure which crossed Rs 5
billion mark this year. PAGE looks at the issues to better understand the changing
face of the Pakistani advertising industry.

DOCUMENTATIONA large majority of
the masses is facing hardships due to unprecedented shutter down strike by the traders.
Those who have flouted the governments declared policy of simplifying the tax process are
responsible for creating such an ugly situation by designing the most complicated tax
survey forms.

SUGARPakistan will be
importing 300,000 tonnes of sugar at a much higher price due to shortfall in production.
Although the shortfall was predicted much earlier the economic planners did not pay heed
to the forecast. The sugar price at that time was $180-$190 a tonne which has now shot up
to the level of $260 a tonne.

CORRECTIONIn our last issue a
couple of errors appeared in our Cover Story on the Automobile industry. On page 13, the
actual production of Toyota vehicles was mentioned as 1069 units. The real figure is
10,169 which appeared correctly in Table A on the same page. On page 15, the first
paragraph of the third column said that Cuore was launched on May 25 this year. The actual
date was March 25. PAGE regrets the errors.